What is a "Ponzi Scheme?"

By
Hopper Law Firm, PLLC
|April 09, 2013

Fraud crimes, otherwise labeled as white collar offenses, are a specific
form of theft crime that often involves more of a plan of deceit as opposed
to just robbing a drug store of the cash in their register. Often time's
fraud schemes in particular take much planning and craftiness in order
to deceive those whose money you are taking. A fraudulent offense is an
act in which the offender willing knows that they are deceiving people
in order to obtain their property; in most cases it is their money, sometimes
it may be other things. Depending on the value of the property that was
stolen from the act determines whether the charges against the person
responsible will be misdemeanor or felonies.

A specific form of fraud is called a "Ponzi scheme" and it was
based off of a man from Italy in the early 1920's that created a plan
in order to take money from people hoping to make money here in the U.S..
Essentially this man would find ways to promote themselves and receive
investors, promising an even larger payout and safe returns on their funds.
This would begin as a small scheme and eventually it would keep growing
and the schemers would pocket more and more of the funds, while still
using some to keep the investors happy and believing the scheme was still
legitimate.

In most cases the scheme will eventually fall apart because eventually
the scammers are unable to keep up with the demand of money and more investor's
needs for the scheme to continue on. A famous scheme that occurred in
the recent years was one of the owners of NASDAQ stole an estimated $65
million in his scheme. After pleading guilty to the charges against him
including mail fraud, security fraud, wire fraud; the court sentenced
him to 150 years behind bars in prison.

As you can see, law enforcing takes fraudulent activities very seriously;
with very severe penalties to those convicted. If you or someone you know
has been arrested for any criminal offense,
contact Hopper Law Firm today for the experienced Raleigh criminal defense lawyer you need!

The information on this website is for general information purposes only.
Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual
case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt
or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.